Playing starters with heavy minute in first round to win less than 10 points ain't no easy game at all. I may be wrong, I wish the strategy is to get a quick first round winning and all players would have a good rest before facing Bulls/Heats. Stay healthy and go, Pistons.

Flip should give the starters and Dice a day off to rest. Training should resume on Wednesday. However, the bench should come into training. Hunter, Delf and Murray should start taking more shots at training. (and please make them)

playing long minutes isn't a big deal...especially in the playoffs with longer timeouts, 4 minutes longer for halftime, the fact that we get 2 days off before our next game, and that the chicago/miami series is going at least 6.

i got to the palace early, but it was really weird because at 7 PM when they were getting ready to do the national anthem, starting lineups, and tip-off, there were literally no more than 5,000 people in the stands. i'm not even kidding. these 7 PM start times are hard...traffic is always slow on I-75, and no one cares about the 1st round. i'm amazed how many people left the game early too.

anyway, this was another easy victory. yeah hunter was -7 in 2 minutes, but i'm not going to place all of the blame on him. the carrying call was bogus, and the other 2 possessions we passed the ball around and got good shots, they just didn't go in. plus orlando will live with lindsey's shooting, so when he's on the floor they just pack the paint. and on defense, we don't need lindsey ... in fact we WANT nelson and arroyo shooting. so i again advocate flip murray for this series. his poor man-to-man defense will get nelson and arroyo shooting more, and he can penetrate the lane better.

dice is playing great, even though we're not getting much offensive production from him. orlando is doing a very good job pushing him out 2 feet past his range, and he's becoming hesitant to shoot. at least he made all his free throws, rather than watching everyone else hit 1 of 2 the whole night.

arroyo is a flop machine, and i'm glad they didn't call the one late in the game. i still did not like the officiating at all, if only because it was so inconsistent. when they let the players play, as in the 1st quarter, we get in a good offensive rhythm and assert ourselves. when the whistle blows non-stop, we revert back to 1 on 1 play and slowing the game down even further.

hats off to flip, because we did good after timeouts...especially when we were doing the 1-on-1 thing and you could see he forced the pistons to pass the ball around 4-5 times minimum before taking a shot.

pretty boring series overall...i just hope we sweep. if i was orlando i'd bench nelson (he should be a backup PG) and bench battie, and start darko and dooling, or darko and arroyo. but either way it doesn't matter - orlando can't win no matter what they try. today they hit free throws and didn't turn the ball over, correcting problems from game 1, and we still won easily.

Actually, I know what REALLY went on between Darko and Brown because my source trumps all others, but I am more not at liberty to say than you are, so therefore this is conclusive proof that I know the truth and this should end all arguments.

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Come on, Darth. You left out the magic phrase "just believe me when I say..." When you use the magic phrase, people will just believe what you say. Usually.

The Pistons are doing what they've done all series. They jump to a double digit lead, watch it get down to four or five points and then make another run. This game looks too scripted. Although the Magic make it look close you never get the feeling they are really in the game. They are a puppet on a string and the puppet master decides when and how they are going to move.

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I tend to agree. That's exactly what it looked like. You know, the proverbial carrot to keep 'm interested.

Here's another post by Terry. Sometimes he has some interesting thoughts I have to admit.

The Pistons remind me of the teenage kid who does not want to clean his room.

You nag him and beg him to do his duties and eventually the room gets cleaned --after you threaten to ground him for a week. It seems as if they don't really want to clean up the Magic, so they kind of pout and horse around before getting the job done.

That's the way its been the entire series. But the Pistons don't care about style points. All they care about is owning a 2-0 lead following Monday night's 98-90 victory over the Orlando Magic at The Palace. The Pistons watched double digit leads slip away all night, only to turn up the heat at their leisure.

Now the series shifts back to Orlando where the Magic hope to find some -- pardon the pun -- Magic. They will need more from Dwight Howard who disappeared and finished with eight points and 11 rebounds.

The Pistons bigs swarmed him and made it difficult for him. His teammates also forgot he existed after the first quarter. Hedu Turkoglu (22 points) was hot from the outside and kept the Magic in it by making 10-of-14 shots. Former Piston Grant Hill played a nice all around game with 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

For the second straight game the Pistons placed five players in double figures but failed to put the Magic away when they should have. The tried to waste a 15-point fourth quarter lead, allowing Orlando to pull to within 88-82 in the final 1:14.

But Chauncey Billups (21 points, eight assists) hit a twisting lay up that resulted in a three-point play that dashed the Magic come back hopes.

The Pistons should win this series in five games because they are the better team. But they don't seem to be clicking on all cylinders. Something is missing. I am betting some harsh words were exchanged at half time because Coach Flip Saunders did not look happy when he walked onto the floor. Whatever happened seemed to revive the team just enough to win.

I know what went on with Larry Brown and Darko but I'm not at liberty to say either. Few people know what a prankster LB was..I'll tell you that much....

Well O.K. ...I'll tell a little bit more. One of Larry's favorite pranks was to unscrew the lightbulbs in Darko's hotel room causing Darko to think there was a power outage. This caused Darko to call the front desk and try to explain that his power was off...and he wasn't very fluent in English at the time. Larry and Gar Heard would be outside Darko's door rolling on the floor laughing.

In both games the Magic cut into the Pistons lead when Hunter took over at point. Hunter had a hard time bringing the ball up and making his 1st initial pass, by the time he ran the 1st play the Magic had plenty of time to get into their defensive positions and it was a struggle from that point. Usually ending in a long jump shot.

This can be corrected. Flip Murry is not the ideal choice but he is all we have. When Murry was in earlier the offense seemed to run ok. Not something you want extended minutes of but its good enough to give CB his 5 minute breather. if Flip insists on playing Hunter then either have someone else bring the ball up or have Hunter bring it up and immediatly pass it to someone else to run the play.

Overall we have nothing to complain about. Pistons are up 2-0 which had not been happening in prior 1st rounds.

The problem with Murray is that he can't guard Nelson. So, you may get better offensively but you'll downgrade defensively. What is better or worse? Who knows. So far it translated into Chauncey and Rip playing over 40 minutes. I wonder, why not have Delphino bring the ball up? He seems to be quick enough and makes intelligent decisions with the ball. He is a streaky shooter, but that is not necessarily going to hurt if he is distributing the ball.

I know what went on with Larry Brown and Darko but I'm not at liberty to say either. Few people know what a prankster LB was..I'll tell you that much....

Well O.K. ...I'll tell a little bit more. One of Larry's favorite pranks was to unscrew the lightbulbs in Darko's hotel room causing Darko to think there was a power outage. This caused Darko to call the front desk and try to explain that his power was off...and he wasn't very fluent in English at the time. Larry and Gar Heard would be outside Darko's door rolling on the floor laughing.

That's all I'm gonna say.

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Believe me when say I can see you cannot be trusted with confidential information.

See if I ever tell YOU any secrets.

But now that the CAT has been let out of the bag, believe me when I say Larry Brown is not a good person.

I know what went on with Larry Brown and Darko but I'm not at liberty to say either. Few people know what a prankster LB was..I'll tell you that much....

Well O.K. ...I'll tell a little bit more. One of Larry's favorite pranks was to unscrew the lightbulbs in Darko's hotel room causing Darko to think there was a power outage. This caused Darko to call the front desk and try to explain that his power was off...and he wasn't very fluent in English at the time. Larry and Gar Heard would be outside Darko's door rolling on the floor laughing.

The first two games averaged 88 possessions for each team. That is about as slow a tempo as you can get in an NBA game.

Orlando is playing right into our hands by making it an execution contest. They have turned the ball over on 23% of their possessions (regular season was 18%, which was the highest in the NBA) and we have turned it over on 12% of ours (vs. 13% in reg season). They have 10 ball handling turnovers to our 4.

How predictable. If I were Brian Hill, I would do something different, even if it's doesn't seem like a good idea. The system they are using is putting a lot of pressure on their worst players... their guards.

Also, take a look at the position by position breakdown of the first 2 games. As expected, Chauncey is annihilating Nelson. +13 PER!

The problem with Murray is that he can't guard Nelson. So, you may get better offensively but you'll downgrade defensively. What is better or worse? Who knows.

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it's better if murray can't guard nelson. first of all, nelson is a terrible shooter. second, he's been getting into the paint anyway against chauncey...we've done a great job of collapsing and not giving him anything, so he either runs along the baseline back to the 3-point line, or he tries to dish to howard who has had stone hands in this series.

basically we want the ball in nelson's hands as much as possible, so i'll go with flip in this case.

btw, the pistons have lulls but so do the fans. people were so bored in game 1 that they were doing the wave in the middle of play (even while sheed was shooting free throws), and the arena was extremely quiet in the 2nd quarter when orlando was coming back. i admittedly stopped being loud as well and was contemplating closing my eyes for a couple mins during halftime.

and what's with hill getting the superstar treatment? part of the reason it's hard for delfino to defend hill is that delfino gets no respect and can't play his usual defense.